concrete, that is, from elementary concepts to notions of greater and
greater richness. The movement of the dialectic is thus the reverse of
that of science” (MR 209 ). We recognize a variation on the distinction
between analytic and synthetic reasoning that is now well established in
Sartre’s discourse. But he is willing to grant the pragmatic truth of the
“materialist faith” insofar as it is linked with the revolutionary attitude.
“It is a fact that materialism is now the philosophy of the proletariat,”
he concedes, “precisely in so far as the proletariat is revolutionary”
(MR 222 ). In the second part of this essay, Sartre sketches the kind of
philosophy that should replace the materialist myth of the proletarian
revolution with a logically coherent philosophy to match its revolution-
ary mentality. In effect, he is reaching toward the horizon from which
hisCritique of Dialectical Reasonbeckons
“The Philosophy of Revolution”Because this major document could easily be discussed at monograph
length, it seems prudent to limit our consideration to four claims made
in this text which portend the next, dialectical phase of Sartre’s thought.
A philosophy of revolution is a philosophy of work. Sartre is initially
circumspect in claiming that “work is, among other things, a direct
link between man and the universe, man’s hold on Nature and, at the
same time, a primary kind of relation between men” (MR 226 ). Compare
this with his remark in theCritiquefourteen years later: “The essential
discovery of Marxism is that labor, as a historical reality and as the
utilization of particular tools in an already determined social and mater-
ial situation, is the real foundation of the organization of social relations.
This discoverycan no longerbe questioned” (CDRi: 152 ,n. 35 , emphasis
his). This is a fulfillment of the promise voiced in “Materialism and
Revolution”: “The liberating element for the oppressed person is work”
(MR 237 ).
The physical resistance of matter to manual labor, Sartre imagines,
also gives rise to the worker’s sense of solidarity (his class consciousness)
and leads him to understand himself in terms of action and not of being;
in effect, human reality is action that is both the unmasking of material
reality and its modification. Labor also familiarizes him with necessary
violence and, above all, with his freedom as the “transcendence” of this
situation. This is freedom as “the possibility ofrising abovea situation in
“Materialism and Revolution” 251